698 EVOLUTION OF THE HORSE. 



and mature animals would be the chief prey of the 

 hunters." 



We may reasonably conclude that the domestication 

 of horses was begun in the Neolithic age. Riitimeyer 

 (Fauna der PfaJilbauten in der Schweiz) and other palaeonto- 

 logists " have shown that the men of the Newer Stone 

 Age kept domestic animals, not only on account of the 

 appearance of the bones of these animals, but also on 

 account of the comparatively advanced degree of civili- 

 sation of these people, who knew how to build houses on 

 piles, weave cloth, cultivate various cereals, and make 

 bread from them, as is evident by the fact that burnt grains 

 and burnt bread have been found in the mire of these 

 lake-cities, along with rags of cloth and dung of domestic 

 animals which lived in these places. The agricultural 

 condition of the Neolithic people in the West of Europe 

 is an absolute proof that they kept domestic animals ; 

 because everywhere, the grazing of cattle has always 

 preceded agriculture " {Pie'trement). 



After citing the results of researches made by many 

 trustworthy palaeontologists, M. Pietrement states : " It 

 is therefore certain that man continued to eat horses 

 during the Neolithic period in the West of Europe, although 

 many of the equine bones of this age which were found 

 to the south of the Loire, must be regarded as belonging 

 to asses. Evidently, Neolithic horses also trod the soil 

 of Belgium." Mr. F. C. Selous tells us in The Living 

 Animals of the World, " that Grevy's zebras become very 

 fat at certain seasons of the year, and their flesh is much 

 appreciated both by natives and lions." " The establish- 

 ment of Christianity was the sole cause of the abolition 

 of the eating of horse-flesh in Central Europe, as we may 

 see by the two prohibitory letters which the Popes Gregory 

 III. [a.d. 731] and St. Zacharias [a.d. 741J sent to 

 Boniface, the apostle of Germany, and which are men- 

 tioned by Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, in his Lettres sur 

 les substances alimentaires " (^Pietreniciit'). The fact that 



